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'Thanks for being so Canadian,' Lightfoot fan shouts to legend
Troubadour offers mix of young and old
By Ted Shaw, The Windsor Star May 20, 2011 Canada's iconic troubadour, Gordon Lightfoot, brought his life's work to the WFCU Centre Thursday, and it was a labour of love for both the performer and his audience.
An audience of about 2,500 heard songs dating back to the earliest years of Lightfoot's career.
Near the end, just after he sang his trademark suite, Canadian Railroad Trilogy, someone shouted, "Thanks for being so Canadian."
That said it all. The 72-year-old singer, who has defied the odds in life-threatening health issues in recent years, wasn't trying to impress anyone or fill in the gaps between songs with idle banter. There are just too many songs to fit into a two-hour show, so Lightfoot offered a balanced mixture of the old and new.
The voice is a little frayed at the seams. But Lightfoot was relaxed and comfortable launching his late-spring tour of Ontario here.
He opened with a hit from 1967, Did She Mention My Name?, and followed it with a classic from the 1970s, Carefree Highway.
His songs, of course, refuse to grow old along with Lightfoot. They are what the audience came to hear and, in some cases, sing.
Lightfoot said in an interview in The Windsor Star last month there isn't a song in his half-century of output that he doesn't enjoy performing. The year 2012, in fact, will mark the 50th anniversary of Lightfoot's very first radio hit, (Remember Me) I'm The One.
The concert was divided into two 50-minute halves with a 15-minute intermission. The 14 songs in the first half were followed by another 12 in the second half.
Many of the songs are signature songs for two generations.
His performance of Home From The Forest, from the mid-1960s, came up just before Waiting For You, one of Lightfoot's last hits from the 1990s. But the 30-year gap between them didn't seem to matter.
Lightfoot has never talked much at his shows, preferring to let the music speak for him. But he did let the audience in on some secrets about the songs.
Baby Step Back, surprisingly, came to him during a round of golf. The later song, As Fine As Fine Could Be, was written for one of his daughters. Hangdog Hotel Room was inspired by the country fiddler, Doug Kershaw.
The audience was anxious to clap along, and some feeble attempts were made during Cotton Jenny, Alberta Bound and Don Quixote. But most of the time, they quietly listened and sang to themselves.
tshaw@windsorstar.com
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